Why did Perseverance carve an “L” into the surface of Mars?

Somewhere on the surface of Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover is now hard at work on its missions. These missions include deliver to Earth small samples of rocks from the red planetso that scientists can study its composition and possibly find signs of life. But what does that have to do with carving the letter L into the surface of Mars? Well, that makes more sense than you might think.

Perseverance is located specifically in Jezero Crater, near the Plain of Isidis region. In this area, formed after the fall of a meteorite, there was once a lake. This lakebed may contain irrefutable evidence of life on Marsor at least those that indicate that he once was.

Therefore, Perseverance is currently collecting samples of this soil. However, it is not worth collecting for the sake of collecting, and precisely NASA needs to know the specific points from which each of them came out., and its orientation on the planet. How could they know in such an unknown region? One “easy” way is to point it at the bedrock, which is why the rover carves out little “graffiti” on the planet.

How did NASA Perseverance carve giant graffiti on Mars?

As described in CNETThe rover achieved this by using a laser in its SuperCam instrument. With this, managed to open three holes that have the same shape as the letter L.

During this Thursday’s report, Roger Vince, SuperCam’s principal investigator, comments that it is “first letter laser engraved on Mars“.

In addition to searching for life on the planet, the rover is engaged in another mission. Collection of Martian specimens will allow researchers to piece together the history of Mars’ magnetic fieldand how it affected the atmosphere of the red planet. Therefore, scientists need to easily recognize the orientation of rock pieces, which would allow them to understand the initial directions of the magnetic domains of the samples.

The best way to determine the orientation of rock samples is − denoting them in recognizable forms for a person.

Now that they have seen that this new procedure has been successful, they also plan to take it to sample collections future. So don’t expect the recorded messages on Mars to end here, they’re just getting started… Just don’t wait for the “Percy was here” message. NASA has made it quite clear that it prefers to focus its efforts on research rather than nonsense.